‘Math Culture’

Bon Crowder, Math Mom and Education Advocate, publishes MathFour and That’s Math to support teachers and parents in their quest to build better math learners. Our most enthusiastic interviewee to date, Bon shared six thoughts about math, suggesting that perhaps the 5 Thoughts about Math could be +/- 1 due to rounding.

Rachel Levy, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, agreed to share five thoughts about math with us. She’s the editor in chief of Grandma got STEM (a site dedicated to grandmothers who work or worked in Science, Technology, Engineering or Math), the Interface Compendium of Student Work, and SIURO, an undergraduate applied mathematics research publication, as well as an associate editor of Math Horizons.

Dan Shapiro is the founder of two software companies, has worked at Microsoft and Google, and is the proud dad of four-year-old boy/girl twins. He’s the creator of Robot Turtles, a tabletop board game that teaches computer programming concepts to kids ages 3-8. Dan uses math as a programmer, a business owner, and as a dad. He generously shared five thoughts about math.

Susan Cahalane, a research scientist turned elementary school science teacher, writes about fun science experiments and activities on her blog, Science for Kids. Today on Add It Up, she shares thoughts on raising kids who love math and being a positive role model for girls.

Gender and cultural barriers in math education have lessened since I was a student (and definitely since generations before), but there are still improvements to be made. I earned an engineering degree which means I took a lot of math courses in high school and college. I was often the only female and in many cases, the only person of color, in many of my classes. Rather than discourage me, it motivated me to succeed – not only for myself, but for my future children. I felt a need to push beyond barriers to benefit future generations.

We’re pleased to present Danielle Woods, one of the Education.com founders, as our first guest in the 5 Thoughts about Math series. In the coming months we’ll feature additional exciting guests sharing their thoughts about math and raising young mathematicians.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) camps are not only great fun, they’re the preferred type of camp for some kids. In fact, in my family, they’re all the rage. But some people are under the impression that kids only attend math and science when their parents push them to do so.

School testing in the early elementary years revealed that my son had profound strengths in math and spatial reasoning. As a writer, I was prepared to raise a budding wordsmith, but math? How could I nurture his gifts while, at the same time, camouflage my own math inadequacies?

Welcome to Add It Up, our new math blog for parents and educators! Having shared an exciting year of kid-appealing math for parents and their children, we’re expanding our horizons. As much as parents enjoy adding up octopus legs and doughnut holes, we realize you all might want something a little more grown-up for yourselves.